Seriously? This seems like an awful lot of trouble to go to in order to extort a parking ticket and towing fee from someone. And now that they’ve been caught, they’ll never recover from the bad reputation. That’s just skeezy.

So they posted the warning, but when they were scheduled to paint it, there was a car in the space & instead of waiting for the car to leave, the painter painted around it. Turns out the owner of the car lived on the streets, and probably rarely moved the car, if ever.

Seems to me they gave warning, then enforced what they said they would do. That *used* to be a virtue, no?

Towing the car was reasonable — I’d expect them to have towed it before painting the space. But charging her for it was unreasonable, and ticketing her for being in the space was outrageous. Even if there really were warnings, and even if they were prominent, she may not have noticed them, or she may have parked before they went up. Do you really think that someone who is parked somewhere legally has an obligation to check the spot every few days just in case a notice has gone up warning of a change in the spot’s legal status?! That’s not something a person can be expected to anticipate.

I know that here in NYC, when they temporarily ban parking on a block for an event or a filming or something, they post notices a few days in advance, but anyone who’s still there on the day is towed for free. You just call the police and they’ll tell you where they left your car, and you can pick it up.

I don’t get what the big deal is. It makes for funny and superficially embarrassing video, for sure, but doesn’t the propriety of the tow/ticket rest on what is considered adequate notice in that jurisdiction?

I mean, that article really buries the lede re: the notice posted 3 days earlier. Without more information, it’s hard to know whether that was sufficient grounds or not.

We can argue about the propriety of the action, but without the actual notice, we are left with the question as to what it was warning about:
That the space was being re-classified; or that street-painting would be done at a certain date/time; or both?
The action taken in painting around the parked car, and then towing it, is just so illustrative of the bureaucratic mindset, that the action does not seem that exceptional.

SPQR – I was in the USN for 11 years, so I look at things differently I guess.

askeptic said it better than I did:

“We can argue about the propriety of the action, but without the actual notice, we are left with the question as to what it was warning about:
That the space was being re-classified; or that street-painting would be done at a certain date/time; or both?
The action taken in painting around the parked car, and then towing it, is just so illustrative of the bureaucratic mindset, that the action does not seem that exceptional.”

Comment by askeptic (b8ab92) — 2/11/2013 @ 3:53 pm

So the black and white “ignorance of the law is no excuse” butts heads with the outrage people feel when we see an abuse of power, and everything gets painted in shades of grey.

That in a nutshell is the problem with gov’t running things – obedience to bureaucratic rules trump common sense.

Something like that happened in LA some years back. A truck came around painted the curb no parking another came around and erected No Parking signs a meter maid came around handing out tickets and then tow trucks showed up and hauled all the cars away. Yep people parked on the side of the street and returned to find their cars gone and the area signed and designated No Parking

She was on constructive knowledge. She could have gone to the library. Read the Federal Register every week, it’s only ______ pages. Who was stopping her?

In a community, which it takes a village of to raise a child or children (no gender fascism implied), we each are responsible for monitoring our compliance with community-friendly non-optional approved usage compliance standards.

Sorry, I meant one of those assault guns. She might own one of those with a handle and a bayonette mount exactly like what killed all those kids in that place that time. I read it in the New York Times.

Seems to me that once the municipality has been caught lying about painting the spot WHILE the car was sitting there, the alleged “notice” of the reclassification of the spot becomes questionable as well. That municipality sacricifed their credibility for the ticket and towing fee.

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